“When it comes to the border and the wall, Trump’s willful estrangement from reality is so profound that network executives and newspaper editors spent part of Tuesday in strategy sessions about how to respond to his inevitable barrage of falsehoods. Should there be a crawl of words on the bottom of the television screen to correct him in real time? Could fact checkers work speedily enough to post rebuttals online…? This is where we find ourselves. Other presidents have been untrustworthy, and others have had to be called out on it. But not like this. This is surreal.”

Progress could involve an “active containment” strategy “using existing military capabilities, by forming a missile defense perimeter in international waters surrounding North Korea that would knock down every missile launched.” Not only is the idea currently feasible, it could be achieved relatively simply. “Just two U.S., Japanese, or Korean destroyers in international waters off North Korea could form this missile defense perimeter…. Intercepts could be calculated to occur outside of North Korean airspace, and to have the debris fall harmlessly into the ocean.”

“What does Kim Jong-un want?” That is the question that still plagues intelligence officials. “Six years after Mr. Kim took power and began executing those who challenged his rule…there is no issue that confounds analysts more than the motives of a 33-year-old dictator whose every move seems one part canny strategy, one part self-preservation, and one part nuclear narcissism.”

“Kim Jong Un may try to accelerate the timetable. North Korea’s growing strategic capabilities suggest that Washington – which has long chosen to ignore and minimize the problem posed by Pyongyang – will need to come up with a serious strategy to deal with the DPRK, and do so sooner rather than later.

“New CEOs who present their strategy within the first 100 days of their appointment can see stock prices rise by an average of 5.3 percent on presentation day (around $2.8 bn in market value). The average stock price gain for presentations by new CEOs appointed from outside the organization is 9.3 percent (just under $5 bn), and for new CEOs from outside the company’s home industry it’s 12.4 percent (around $6.6 bn).” Despite these impressive results, “only 40 percent of new CEOs present on strategy in their first 200 days.”

“The Made in China 2025 plan can be read as a ‘go it alone’ strategy for Beijing; it’s in effect saying, Thank you very much for all of your foreign direct investment over the last 20 years, we’ll be OK from here on—and by the way, we’re going to eat your lunch.”

“Smaller rivals are assaulting the world’s biggest brands” causing some to wonder if billion dollar brands remain a viable strategy. Though “they make some of the world’s best-loved products,” large consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies are under assault. “For a time, size gave CPG companies a staggering advantage,” but their advantages are weakening and in some cases becoming Achilles heels. “The lumbering giants are finding it hard to keep up with fast-changing consumer markets.”

There are lots of questions for the Bank of Japan about its negative rate strategy, which “has caused bond yields to fall below zero, money market funds to stop accepting money, and lawmakers to summon Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda to parliament a record number of times to explain it.”

“Europe seems determined to keep treating this as a policing problem, or at least as anything other than a call to bolster military efforts in Syria…. There’s a role for policing in a counterterror strategy, but also a limit. Brussels…can’t live in perpetual lockdown. Until the West is prepared to fight this terrorist threat at the source, Tuesday’s victims in Brussels won’t be the last.”

The conditional deal between Saudi Arabia and Russia delivered “maximum rhetorical impact for the minimum genuine commitment.” Ultimately, it “will not take a single barrel of oil off the market to ease the glut that has driven crude prices down about 70 per cent since the summer of 2014.” The deal reveals “nervousness among the world’s two largest oil producers. But the fact that Saudi Arabia is not already cutting its output, in spite of mounting signs of financial strain, shows that while its strategy might be painful, it is still rational.”